The Man of Bronze

by James Alan Gardner

  But nothing happened. I told myself, maybe when several pieces joined together, the energies they emitted were more controlled. Maybe the pieces were less . . . how shall I put it? . . . less angry now that they weren’t entirely separate from their fellows. They were calmer once they had company. Whatever the reason, I felt no immediate threat from the leg. Hesitantly, I picked it up.

  Unlike when I touched the leg in the Sargasso, I felt no surge of energy. Maybe that only happened the first time one came in contact with supernatural bronze. Yet I did feel the stirrings of memory. Déjà vu. As if this hunk of bronze were a childhood friend whom I hadn’t thought about in a long time. How could that be? How could . . .

  Remembrance rose in my mind. My father’s study. It had been off-limits for harum-scarum little girls who couldn’t be trusted around Ming vases or twelfth-century tapestries. One day I sneaked inside anyway and found something strange on my father’s desk: a life-sized finger made of bronze. I was daring myself to touch it when my father caught me—he always caught me—and for once, he didn’t lecture me on obeying rules. “Ah,” he said, “you found that. Well, have a good look, girl. You certainly can’t damage it, and this is your last chance to view a family heirloom. I was about to ship it off.”

  “What is it?” I asked, picking it up.

  “A keepsake from an ancestor. Lord Roger Croft—in the navy during the Napoleonic Wars. He was lieutenant on a ship that captured a French man-of-war . . . one that was carrying treasures the French had stolen from Egypt. In those days, the crews got to keep a percentage of booty from any ship they captured; and the captain took a fancy to a bronze hand found in a French treasure chest. As a joke, he broke off the fingers and gave one to each of his subordinate officers. Kept the fingerless palm for himself. Shocking by today’s standards, of course. Enough to give an archaeologist a heart attack. But those were different times.”

  Father took the finger from me and held it up to the light. “It’s been in our family ever since. Considered a good luck charm. I have to admit, all the ship’s officers who shared the bits of bronze have had remarkable descendants . . . as if some magic influence produced extraordinary children. The captain’s name was Greystoke. The officers were Holmes, Quatermain, Templar, Bond, and of course, our own Roger Croft.”

  He looked at me as if the names should mean something. They didn’t; I was too young. “Well, girl,” he said, “it doesn’t matter. We Crofts are extraordinary enough. And I’ve just had a letter from some priest in Cairo who’s trying to repatriate Egyptian treasures: antiquities plundered by Napoleon and others. This priest says our finger is part of a statue of Osiris they’re trying to reassemble. He offered quite a fair price to buy it back. I’m reluctant to part with a family heirloom . . . but it is stolen goods, and we ought to do the right thing.”

  I never saw the finger again. Father must have sold it to the priest—obviously a member of the Order of Bronze. The finger returned to its rightful owner, and I forgot all about the incident.

  Until now. I looked at the metal leg in my hands, and realized my fears about being mutated by bronze radiation might have come decades too late. Bemused, I wrapped the leg in unused painting canvas so it wouldn’t be recognizable. I tucked the resulting package under my arm, then went up to rescue my friends.

  Ilya’s door stood nearest the stairs. It was locked . . . but I tried the keys I’d taken from the guard and found one that did the trick. To avoid unwanted disturbances, I locked the door behind me after I went inside.

  Ilya lay unconscious in the bed. His breaths were deep and regular . . . a good sign. I was about to begin drastic measures to wake him when I heard a noise in the hallway: someone jangling keys. I slipped into the adjoining bathroom, leaving the door open a crack so I could see. The hall door clicked open and a guard entered, wheeling a small cart. The cart held medical equipment, including a collection of hypodermic needles.

  Aha, I thought, Ilya’s getting a visit from the doctor. This would be the man assigned to keep my friends out cold until Silver needed them. Nice of this chap to arrive at such a convenient time . . . but it also made sense that someone would check the prisoners on a regular basis. Anesthetics can be finicky: too little and the patient wakes up; too much and the patient dies. Maintaining the proper balance takes frequent monitoring.

  The guard took out a stethoscope and laid it against Ilya’s chest. He leaned over Ilya’s body to do so . . . and unfortunately for the “doctor,” he had his back to me. I took terrible advantage of his vulnerable position—the man was too busy listening to Ilya’s heartbeat to hear me sneaking up from behind. A brief unpleasantness ensued, involving my fists and the guard’s kidneys, groin, and face. It ended exactly as you’d expect: me with my knuckles stinging and the guard not feeling much of anything.

  Shaking the tingles out of my hand, I checked the contents of the doctor’s cart: syringes for all occasions, labeled to avoid any mix-up. MAN 1, SEDATIVE, MIDNIGHT. MAN 1, SEDATIVE, 4:00 AM. MAN 1, STIMULANT, IF NEEDED. Also a set of needles for MAN 2 and WOMAN. I got the feeling the injections had been prepared in advance by a skilled anesthetist, and the guard I’d just knocked out was merely a “night nurse” following orders. Perfect.

  I got the stimulant for MAN 1 and injected it into Ilya’s arm. While the drug took effect, I took advantage of supplies on the medical cart to bandage my wounded arm. The graze from Urdmann’s LEI Mark 2 was as superficial as I’d hoped; it throbbed with pain but wouldn’t slow me down. Nice shooting, Lancaster, I thought. Couldn’t have done less damage if you’d tried.

  Once I’d patched myself up, I searched the room. The closet held nothing but Ilya’s clothes from Australia—Silver didn’t provide fancy wardrobes for his male guests. The android only cared about women.

  Ilya groaned as he struggled up to consciousness. I went back to the bed and urged him to the washbasin before he was sick. He was very sick. I felt torn between the desire to play Florence Nightingale—to coddle him as best I could—and the desire to allow him the dignity of pulling himself together on his own. (Lara, one mustn’t intrude . . . all that stiff-upper-lip nonsense.) In the end, I made do with, “Are you sure you’re all right? Okay then, I ought to wake the others.” I wasn’t sure if I was being cowardly or considerate, but I grabbed up the MAN 2 and WOMAN stimulants, and beat a hasty retreat.

  The scene played out much the same with Lord Horatio and Teresa. I realized I’d had it easy when I woke up—yes, I’d felt wretched, but whatever sedative I’d received, Silver let it wear off gradually so I’d come around on my own. My friends didn’t have that luxury: their bloodstreams were battlegrounds where sedative and stimulant fought, inflicting untold collateral damage. All three of my companions looked dreadful . . . as bad as zombies, and I’d seen a lot of zombies. But their hearts still beat strongly—I checked. Slowly, they regained control over their stomachs, bowels, etc., and began to show signs of life.

  Meanwhile, I busied myself with practicalities . . . like recounting my conversation with Silver and keeping watch for guards. No guards appeared; the house was silent. The “doctor” guard had worn a digital watch that moved from 2:31 A.M. to 2:48 while my friends droopily recovered. Through the window, I watched pairs of guards stroll the outside walkways, but it seemed as if no one patrolled inside the house. Good.

  I had one other practicality to deal with: arranging clothes for Teresa. Silver had filled her closet with the same frivolous garments he’d supplied for me. On the one hand, I had to give the android credit for consistency—he apparently wanted all women to dress like taffeta trollops. On the other hand, I had a devil of a time kitting up something Teresa would actually wear. Pity she was entirely the wrong size to wear the uniform from the guard in Ilya’s room. Eventually I got her into a frock that was frilly and pink but long enough to satisfy the dictates of modesty, plus a cheongsam overtop to cover the frock’s meteorically plunging neckline. Under other circumstances, Teresa would still have walloped an
yone who dared suggest she wear such an outfit . . . but she was drained enough from her drugged stupor not to put up a fight.

  2:52 A.M. by my newly acquired watch. With me scouting ahead, our party made its way to the house’s ground floor. All clear. I nodded to the others and started along the main corridor.

  My plan was simple. With so many guards keeping watch outside, we didn’t have a chance of passing them unseen. I could have done it myself, but not with three still-nauseous people in tow. Therefore we’d leave more openly: find a garage, steal a car, drive like mad fools into the night.

  If the house had an attached garage, it would likely be on one end or the other of the main floor. I led my friends toward the nearest end of the corridor. Voilà—the room on the end was a vestibule with an assortment of coat hooks, shoe mats, and a rack of labeled car keys. Beyond was a spacious garage filled with exactly the sort of vehicles you might expect Silver to own: some sporty little numbers—a Porsche 911 GT2, a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish—the mandatory Rolls-Royce Phantom limo, and an equally mandatory Hummer H2. All, of course, were colored silver.

  The only surprise was a massive red Oldsmobile 88 roadster dating back to 1957. It had all the classic accoutrements—tail fins, miles of chrome, a V8 engine—with no modern distractions like seat belts or power steering. But the car didn’t look like a trophy vehicle. You know what I mean—an automobile kept in mint condition and put on display like Wedgwood china. Silver’s Olds was battered and scratched . . . missing its hood ornament . . . equipped with modern Michelins instead of vintage whitewalls. I wondered if it was a recent acquisition; perhaps Silver amused himself by restoring old cars, and this was his latest project.

  Then I noticed the license plate: Brazilian. Specifically, the state of Rio de Janeiro. All the cars had similar plates. That told me where I was, and explained why Silver kept the giant not-too-nice clunker in his fleet. We must be on an estate near the city of Rio. This Olds was Silver’s nondescript town car, for times when he wanted to cruise around without drawing attention. Most Latin-American cities have plenty of such big old cars. I could imagine Silver driving the Olds along downtown strips or on beachfront roads, ogling Brazilian beauties as if he were just another Rio resident.

  “So which car do we take?” Teresa asked.

  “Larochka will steal a sports car,” Ilya answered with his usual air of resigned gloominess.

  “The sports cars can’t seat four people,” Lord H. pointed out.

  “Larochka will squeeze two of us into the trunk,” Ilya said.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” I told him, “we aren’t taking the sports cars. We’re taking the old Olds.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the others are too noticeable. Silver surely has contacts in Rio: gang members and other criminals. If we drive a Rolls or Aston Martin into the city, we’ll be spotted instantly. But the Olds will blend in with traffic. Practically invisible.”

  Ilya looked at the Olds for a moment, then turned back to me. “Besides,” he said, “you won’t mind ruining the paint job if you have to smash through security gates or bash other cars off the road.”

  I smiled. “There is that.” I tossed him a set of keys, then threw other keys to Teresa and Lord Horatio. “Unlock all the other cars. Open the bonnets and remove something vital from the engines. We don’t want anyone chasing us in a Porsche 911.”

  “You can’t fool me,” Ilya said. “You’d love a car chase against a Porsche 911.”

  “True,” I admitted. “But I won’t be driving. You will.”

  “Me?” Ilya said.

  “I know you don’t like cars. But you were a fighter pilot. You have superb reflexes. You’ll do fine.”

  “And while I’m driving, what will you be doing?”

  I gestured with the Uzi I’d taken from the guard. “I’ll ride shotgun.”

  It pained me to sabotage such fine cars . . . so I didn’t. While the others pulled off distributor caps, I checked every inch of the Olds to make sure it wasn’t equipped with a LoJack or some other tracking device. It had two: one very obvious on the underside of the chassis and another hidden inside the reservoir that held window-washing fluid. Clearly, Silver didn’t want thieves making off with his automobiles. Maybe an android would regard these machines as primitive brothers and sisters. I removed both homing beacons using tools hanging above a bench on one wall of the garage. By the time I was done, my friends had also finished their missions of destruction. “Hop in,” I said, opening the Oldsmobile’s doors. “I’ve had enough of this place’s hospitality.”

  Teresa hesitated before getting inside. “Do you think they’ll just let us drive away?”

  “Hard to say,” I replied. “Silver is an arms dealer. He does business with crime lords and terrorists. Anyone else in that position would take stringent security precautions—nobody in or out without being checked. But Silver may not be so strict. For one thing, he’s a haphazard lecher who hates paying attention to details. If he gets a whim to drive into Rio and pick up women, the guards may have orders to stay out of his way. Just let his car out, no questions asked. And for another thing . . .”

  “Yes?” Lord Horatio asked.

  “Silver is virtually indestructible. Why should he care about security? If someone attacks this estate—the police, a business rival, an unhappy customer—Silver can just walk away, with bullets bouncing off his back. He’ll have hideouts in other countries and money stashed in Switzerland or the Caymans. Silver may let his guards slack off, because he doesn’t have much to lose.”

  “So you’re saying we could get into a colossal firefight,” Teresa grumbled, “or they might let us go without blinking. Nice to have a range of possibilities.”

  “We’ll soon narrow it down,” I told her. “Let’s go.”

  Ilya got behind the wheel and turned the ignition key. I’d have felt foolish if the car didn’t start . . . especially since we’d rendered the other cars inoperative. But the Oldsmobile’s huge V8 came to life immediately. It sounded loud in the enclosed garage; I hoped it would be more subdued once we got outside.

  The garage door must have had an electric eye, because it opened as soon as we approached. If that lit a warning light on some security control console, there was nothing we could do. Slowly, we started up the drive.

  The driveway snaked between rows of palm trees, then along a patch of night-dark beach—likely a lagoon of the Atlantic Ocean—and finally through a thicket of profuse vegetation—rubber trees, bananas, bougainvillea—that curtained the house from prying eyes outside the property.

  I told Ilya to stop the Olds just before we left the thicket. None of the guards near the house had paid us any attention; as I expected, they were used to Silver making unannounced forays into town. Before we got to the gate, however, I wanted to see what we were heading into. I left the car and quietly made my way forward, Uzi in my hand.

  Rounding a final bend in the road, I grimaced as I faced a worst-case scenario: not just an iron gate that looked too sturdy for the Olds to crash through but a guardhouse with an attached garage. There could be any number of guards inside . . . and even if we got past them somehow, they’d hop into their cars and chase us. I didn’t relish our prospects if it came to hot pursuit—we’d be outnumbered and outgunned, trying to escape on roads we were totally unfamiliar with. Not promising. Best to deal with the opposition before matters got out of hand.

  I stole forward through the darkness.

  One end of the guardhouse was a room with a plate-glass window facing the gate. Undoubtedly, the gate’s open switch lay inside that room. The room also held two guards: one standing, one sitting, both visible through the lighted window. What I couldn’t see, because it was below window level, was the dog—not until it started barking its fool head off.

  Sometimes I like dogs. Sometimes I don’t. Guess my feelings on this occasion.

  The guards probably reacted as they always do, asking, “Wha
t is it, boy? What do you smell?” (Considering where we were, the guards likely spoke in Portuguese, but you get the idea.) I didn’t actually hear what they said because I was too busy sprinting the remaining distance to the guardhouse and taking refuge around the corner from the big window. As I ran, I hoped the sentries’ conversation would follow the usual pattern of guard-human guard-dog interactions. “Oh, he probably just smells a cat/rat/fox/opossum/fill in the name of other local wildlife. Shut up, Fido!”

  But Fido didn’t stop barking. Bad dog! No treats for you. And eventually, the guards did what lax security personnel always do to avoid making a decision: they let the dog out to see what would happen.

  The guardhouse door was on the opposite side of the building from me. I could hear the door open. I could hear the dog raising a ruckus as he ran to where my scent was strongest. I could hear him barking in annoyance as he wondered where on earth I was.

  Not on earth, Fido. My ancestors outevolved yours because we learned to climb trees.

  The roof of the guardhouse had been only a few feet above my head. I’d jumped up and grabbed the edge, then pulled myself the rest of the way. My injured arm hurt like blazes. I ignored it. By the time Fido reached my previous position, I was crawling quietly over the roof’s rough adobe. The dog was still yapping fiercely when I reached the other side. I peeked over the edge of the roof and looked down on the top of a guard’s head as he stood in the doorway.

  “Stupid dog!” the man said in Portuguese. “What are you up to?”

  The dog didn’t answer. It kept up its clamor. I could hear it racing around in the darkness, trying to find me.

  “You’d better see,” said the other guard, still out of sight inside the building. The first guard muttered a curse, then drew his Uzi and stomped off to see why the dog was raising such a fuss. A moment later, the second guard came to the doorway and looked off after his partner. The second guard also had his Uzi drawn; he was ready to offer backup in case this was more than a prowling cat or vermin.